Regarding this difficult matter of Dark Matter

BORING ALERT: For those of you who could care less about astrophysics or anything relating to the cosmos, just stop reading right now.

So I woke up this morning at around 1:30am with a possible solution to this whole "Accelerating Universe" thing. (For those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about see waaay below). So struck was I to find out if I was right, or more likely, totally wrong I wrote my thoughts to me personal Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. (If you currently don't have a favorite astrophysicist you should get one - I vote for Neil!)

I just sent it this morning so i don't expect a response right away but I'm excited to see if he has anything to say about it!

Here's my email to him:

Mr. Tyson,

I was thinking heavily on this mysterious problem of Dark Energy that seems to be accelerating our universe outward. At around 1:30am a possible explanation popped into my head. I'm sure this may have already been considered and, likely, found untrue.

I was reading a summary of Einstein's Theory of relativity when I came across a thought inducing sentence: "…space and time emerged from Einstein's reworking as malleable constructs whose form and appearance depend on one's state of motion."

This whole "appearance depending on one's state of motion" thing got me thinking. Perhaps the universe isn't actually speeding up but rather, we're slowing down? I'm not great at analogies but I'm going to give it a shot.

Think about two Yo-Yo's. One has a longer string than the other. That string could represent gravity, the longer the string, the weaker the gravity. The actual Yo-Yo represents a sphere of space (extended from the Universal Center) or a body of mass. If you release each Yo-Yo from it's starting point (Big Bang) the two would see themselves accelerating toward earth at the same rate. However, when the shorter yo-yo reaches the end of its string it begins to decelerate. If you were standing on the shorter yo-yo, it would appear as though the longer yo-yo were speeding away with a sudden boost in acceleration when in fact the observer has simply slowed.

I know it's not completely polished but it was something that made me think "What would Neil say?"

I would be honored with your thoughts on my amateur-ish Eureka moment!

Cheers!

Benito Segovia

On the topic of the accelerating universe: It's pretty commonly accepted that we all emerged from this Big Bang thing and ever since we've been rocketing away from the Universal core at approximately the same speed as everything else. Well, many wondered how long we could keep expanding until our own collective gravity slowed us down, eventually stopped us, and reversed the direction everything was moving.

Recent observations have found that instead of the universe grinding to a halt, it seems to be accelerating further outward. This has confounded physicists to a point of coming up with something called Dark Matter being held responsible for the massive amount of gravity required to power this kind of acceleration. Dark Matter and Dark Energy are now hotly debated and no proof of their existence yet exists.

Anyway, here's hoping he responds.

Settling in in Houston

I'm In!

The move went well. We split the drive from Atlanta to Houston in half with a stop in New Orleans. Desha recommended I go to Jacques Imo's but alas, since it was Sunday, they were closed.

Arrived on Monday around 7:00pm so we decided to call it a night considering we'd been driving for over 8hrs. The U-haul guy gave me a shit load of extra miles and an extra day with the truck so we took our time. I ended up unloading it all myself with Noelle carrying the smaller items and organizing stuff inside the apartment. It was incredibly easy actually.

The Awesome Apartment

My apartment is friggin awesome. It's right in an area called Upper Kirby which, after driving around a bit, reminds me of a few areas of Atlanta. Specifically Little Five Points, Dunwoody, Decatur, Mid-town, and Buckhead. Just take the best parts of all those areas and you've got my little neighborhood. I'm across the street from just about anything i could want.

There is an old theatre house that has been converted to a book store. Three starbucks (I love coffee!). Two grocery stores, Randall's and Whole Foods. Randall's is like a slightly nicer Publix. We also have Kroger if I'm ever feeling like NOT spending $100 for a few items of food.

Noelle is awesome

Noelle has been awesome this whole time. It's her spring break so she's dedicated this week to "Assimilate Benito Week". I made that up, not her.

New Stuff - No more Katrina victim beds

I left my bed in Atlanta so i still need to get one. I'm going to go ahead and get a nice one this time. No more Katrina beds for me. See, i'm moving up. First I slept on an airmatress for about 9months, then I slept on a triple hand-me-down bed from New Orleans - post Katrina (don't worry, a small family wasnt recued on it, Desha's boyfriend Peyton gifted it to me - he's clean - I think.)

Working from Home

Anyway, Since I'm going to be working remotely from Houston a big part of my new apartment will have to be the office area. I want it to be totally conducive to working so half-assing it here either. My personal goal is to "be at work" by 8am every morning (9am Atlanta time). This includes taking a shower and putting on "work-like" clothes. So no underwear conference calls. Gotta dress for success right? We'll see how that works out.

Storm City

Holy Storms! I've been here 3 days and we've already got a flood warning and some massive torrential downpour. apparently Houston has a "Hurricane Season" so that means I'll be prone to dying and stuff. This is new to me since Atlanta seems to be in this environmental status field (tornadoes rarely enter the city, no earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanoes, blizzards, forest fires, landslides or meteorites). Today it rained like a pisser. I'm on the ground floor so I'm just waiting for the day when I wake up and step into a puddle, maybe into a small pool.

Anyway. Noelle is in the kitchen putting stuff away while I sit here and blab away on MySpace. Wish us luck!

Cheers!
Benito

Credits

I just want to thank everyone for helping me move out and kicking total ass dealing with my epic disorganization during the move process. (We ended up throwing everything into giant 4.5cu. ft. boxes. - My salt shakers, for example, were empty upon arrival.)